Related papers: On Probability and Cosmology: Inference Beyond Dat…
Bayesian statistics is based on the subjective definition of probability as {\it ``degree of belief''} and on Bayes' theorem, the basic tool for assigning probabilities to hypotheses combining {\it a priori} judgements and experimental…
I discuss some central issues in particle physics which are potentially relevant to cosmology. I first briefly review the present (glorious) experimental status of the Standard Model, emphasizing that it provides a firm foundation both for…
We discuss scientific realism from the perspective of modern cosmology, especially primordial cosmology: i.e. the cosmological investigation of the very early universe. We first (Section 2) state our allegiance to scientific realism, and…
Scientific cosmology has now reached its period of maturity with the establishment of a standard model, which is the theory of an expanding universe. The question of whether this expansion resolves itself, in the past, into a singularity…
Model-independent methods in cosmology has become an essential tool in order to deal with an increasing number of theoretical alternatives for explaining the late-time acceleration of the Universe. In principle, this provides a way of…
Although the inflationary paradigm is the most widely accepted explanation for the current cosmological observations, it does not necessarily correspond to what actually happened in the early stages of our Universe. To decide on this issue,…
Prediction in quantum cosmology requires a specification of the universe's quantum dynamics and its quantum state. We expect only a few general features of the universe to be predicted with probabilities near unity conditioned on the…
Statistical modeling can involve a tension between assumptions and statistical identification. The law of the observable data may not uniquely determine the value of a target parameter without invoking a key assumption, and, while…
We consider the Standard Models of particle physics and hot big bang cosmology, and review the theoretical and experimental motivations for extending these models to include supersymmetry and inflation. An obvious extension would be to…
A cosmological model with total density close to critical (and flat geometry), dominated by dark matter and dark energy of unknown nature, and consistent with the basic predictions of the inflationary scenario is a very good fit to a…
The fundamental laws and constants of our universe seem to be finely tuned for life. The various multiverse hypotheses are popular explanations for the fine tuning. This paper reviews the four main suggestions on inference in the presence…
General relativity has a Hamiltonian formulation, which formally provides a canonical (Liouville) measure on the space of solutions. In ordinary statistical physics, the Liouville measure is used to compute probabilities of macrostates, and…
In light of the recent observational data coming from the sky we have two significant directions in the field of theoretical cosmology recently. First, we are now able to make use of present observations, such as the Planck and BICEP2 data,…
In recent analyses of standard, single-universe, cosmology, it was pointed out that specific assumptions regarding the distribution and motion of matter must be made in order to set up the cosmological standard model with a global time…
Cosmic inflation is arguably the most favoured paradigm of the very early Universe. It postulates an early phase of fast, nearly exponential, and accelerated expansion. Inflationary models are capable of explaining the overall flatness and…
Is the universe finite or infinite, and what shape does it have? These fundamental questions, of which relatively little is known, are typically studied within the context of the standard model of cosmology where the universe is assumed to…
We formulate a quantum theory of the Universe based on Bayesian probability. In this theory, the probability of the Universe is not a frequency probability, which can be obtained by observing experimental results several times, but is a…
The early Universe inflation is well known as a promising theory to explain the origin of large scale structure of Universe and to solve the early universe pressing problems. For a resonable inflation model, the potential during inflation…
The aim of this thesis is to question some of the basic assumptions that go into building the $\Lambda$CDM model of our universe. The assumptions we focus on are the initial conditions of the universe, the fundamental forces in the universe…
This article gives a brief overview of some of the theory behind the inflationary cosmology, and discusses prospects for constraining inflation using observations. Particular care is given to the question of falsifiability of inflation or…